5.3 Guidelines for Selecting In-text or Parenthetical Citations

5.3 Guidelines for selecting in-text or parenthetical citations

Avoiding unintentional plagiarism requires you to follow so many rigid rules that this lesson should be a relief.

There are no absolute rules about whether to use in-text or parenthetical citations.

There are some general guidelines that should help you decide which to use.

5.3 Guidelines for selecting in-text or parenthetical citations

Use a parenthetical citation when:

You have not appropriately identified the author, or title of the work if no author is provided, in an in-text citation and you need to provide information about the location of information in your source.

(Required information might include page, paragraph, section, act, scene, or line numbers.)

5.3 Guidelines for selecting in-text or parenthetical citations

Use a parenthetical citation when:

You have appropriately identified the author, or title of the work if no author is provided, in an in-text citation, but you still need to provide information about the location of information in your source

5.3 Guidelines for selecting in-text or parenthetical citations

Use a parenthetical citation when:

You have cited the author in the text but need to specify which work because you are using more than one work by the same author.

5.3 Guidelines for selecting in-text or parenthetical citations

Use a parenthetical citation when:

You have identified the original source in your text but could only find the information quoted in a secondary source.

According to Samuel Raines, the crime rate in Peoria has sky-rocketed in the last ten years (qtd. in Jones 33).

5.3 Guidelines for selecting in-text or parenthetical citations

Use a parenthetical citation when:

Your information comes from more than one source (in-text citations would be too bulky).

5.3 Guidelines for selecting in-text or parenthetical citations

It isn’t wrong to use a parenthetical citation instead of an in-text citation, but there are some situations in which you might prefer an in-text citation.

5.3 Guidelines for selecting in-text or parenthetical citations

Use an in-text citation when:

You are referring to the author of your source, and identifying his or her credentials would lend authority to information that seems opinion-based.

5.3 Guidelines for selecting in-text or parenthetical citations

Use an in-text citation when:

You are citing a work with a corporate author (e.g. government agency, professional organization) and want to avoid a distractingly long parenthetical citation.

Note: If you are using APA format, you are probably writing in a discourse community such as the social sciences that does not mind long parenthetical citations.

5.3 Guidelines for selecting in-text or parenthetical citations

Let’s practice.

Select a scholarly, peer-reviewed article from your field of interest.

Locate three in-text citations and three parenthetical citations.

Explain what considerations might have influenced the author’s decisions about when to use an in-text or parenthetical citation.

If your source only uses one kind of citation, do not look for another source. Explain why you think this may be the case.